Gender Issues in Health Care

Abstract

In the 1990s, many questions are being asked about differences between the treatment of women and men in the health care setting and about the omission or underrepresentation of women in clinical research. Such questions about the quality of care received by women, including those in elderly and ethnic populations, have generated not only a general interest in change, but also new federal mandates. There is an increasing awareness of the need to initiate studies to identify differences in health care, to recognize and assess disease symptoms, to improve diagnosis and prognosis, and to increase knowledge of the definition of a healthy life for those groups who have been largely ignored in past decades.